Supporters of embattled ANC president Jacob Zuma will march on sixteen police stations in Durban on Friday to demand that the charges against their leader be dropped.

At a press conference in Durban on Tuesday the ANC's eThekwini regional secretary John Mchunu said party members would march on the stations and hand over a memorandum.

The marches will be followed a week later by pickets outside and where possible inside eleven magistrate's courts in the greater Durban area.

Mchunu said picketing would take place outside the buildings and where possible inside the relevant buildings.

"It is not our intention to disrupt. Our intention is for everybody to hear our grievance," said Mchunu.

Following the protests outside the court buildings, a protest is planned for 10 September outside the National Prosecuting Authority offices in Durban.

On the night before Zuma finds out whether Judge Chris Nicholson has ruled in his favour to have the decision to charge him declared unlawful, protesters will converge on Pietermaritzburg's Freedom Square (formerly Market Square) to stage a night vigil.

No longer spectators

A press release issued earlier on Tuesday by the ANC's eThekwini region read: "We can no longer be spectators while our president is being lynched. It has become clear that Billy Downer and (Anton) Steynberg are waging a political battle using the state instrument."

Downer and Steynberg are the two prosecutors handling the Zuma case and the two were part of the team that secured the conviction of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik on charges of corruption and fraud involving Zuma.

The press release also called for the reopening of the arms deal probe and for assistance to be rendered to authorities overseas, including Germany and the United Kingdom, where cases of bribery are being investigated in relation to the arms deal.

Sapa